


Unknown Opcode; (A)bort, (M)erge, (R)etry?

by NeoQwerty



Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X
Genre: (how many easter eggs can you find in X's code?), Accidental Viral Infection, Gen, Pre-Rockman X | Mega Man X, X Is A Reploid Scientist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26898874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeoQwerty/pseuds/NeoQwerty
Summary: X tries to troubleshoot a recalcitrant recent discovery that the Maverick Hunters secured; a terrifying red Maverick who singlehandedly wiped out an entire Unit and beat Commander Sigma half to death before spontaneously crashing.On Sigma's orders, they're meant to get the red Reploid cleaned and ready to Hunt some Mavericks for them, and X has been dragged in for his background and ability to solve a lot of unconventional Reploid coding errors.Unfortunately, sometimes people forget his AI age is modeled at 15, which means he can get impatient and reckless.He doesn't look forward to explaining why he and the warbot are now mutually imprinted on each other.
Relationships: X & Zero (Rockman)
Kudos: 2





	Unknown Opcode; (A)bort, (M)erge, (R)etry?

They've been at this for hours, trying to pull the berserk Reploid online as Sigma ordered. The Hunter Commander is uncharacteristically upset when the unknown Reploid continues to automatically fend off attempts to rewrite or revert him back to defaults, to the point Cain has paused the process in order to personally escort his creation back out of their hair.

And, X hopes, have a serious dicussion about Sigma's building frustration and weird obsession with their red "friend". It's strange and unnerving.

X sighs, and carefully combs through what little data they've been able to pull, where each method has failed. There's a lot of unknown opcodes getting caught in error traps; whoever built this Reploid seems to have used a heavily modified fork from the basics, to the point a lot of commands have been changed.

The only thing that seems to work is some of X's personal variables, which are themselves only half-mapped and have the weirdest names. (For example, he knows some of his decision subroutines are prefixed with 000-mod.x, some BLS-x and others are labelled Rock2 and MegamanX, depending if they're robotics or combat-related, his armors use something called the Super Rush Adaptor Xtreme, and he has some legacy data for something called "Beat" that lets him pull up a limited interface to exchange information with the Classic V1 Pararoids, with a HUD in Russian for some reason.)

\--------------------------------------

X finally gains some headway when he tries, on a lark, to run an obscure command he's dredged up from the depths of his own coding, some tiny little innocuous scrap of comment in the debug code he can access.

**_[run cmd stop;'000-*' exec;'rollback836.bat' start;'000-*']_ **

The other bot's eyes turn blank, a terrifying kind of blank that tells X he's shut off any and all higher intelligence, before his head crystal flashes in a specific way that announces an error. It's not an unknown opcode this time, and X combs through the error log and his eyebrows raise up higher in stunned confusion.

He's completely missing the partition to rollback _to_ , which is baffling, because even X has images to back up to in case of a catastrophic failure that would trip his auto-recovery systems.

\---------------------------------------

He thinks this might be it. He runs the command with his new modified batch file and the uploaded generic Hunter load-up image, and... curses when the crystal flashes an error at him again.

"You're really uncooperative, aren't you? Scrap, but you're lucky both Sigma and I want you up and running again."

X pores over the debug data this time, only to go still at the last line.

**_[...awaiting response...]_ **

X really should know better than to do something as dangerous as to connect with a system that's so heavily firewalled and corrupted that no instruments can even tell if he's infected with virus or malware or overflowing. But it's been hours of live-wire stripping and he's now taking this as a personal offense that he can't crack some random berserk Maverick.

So he clicks a cable into place into the red Reploid's neck, and then in his own, and instantly his anti-virus wails, sending him crashing to his knees. Through the fire spreading through his electronic brain, he feels hidden subroutines activate and scramble his data into orchestrated chaos, rolling about as his anti-virus vigorously tries to beat back the other Reploid's jaw-droppingly severe infection.

In tiny bursts of clarity, X now understands why the Reploid was completely berserk, and becomes doubly worried for Sigma. It seems the infection is trying to target his empathy, moral and emotional centers, specifically, and it's only because X's systems are now playing keep-away and throwing a lot of data that-- well, there goes his research on-- and his classical music collec-- and those pictures with-- at least it's not throwing actually important files in the virus' path.

The debug command window in X's HUD is suddenly thrown to the fore with another spike of pain from his breached anti-virus, and X is suddenly jerked into focusing only on the connection and the prompt that shows up on a bloodying HUD.

**_[Override detected and deactivated; conflict between base system files. (A)bort, (R)etry, (M)erge?]_ **

X can barely think, but he knows that retrying will likely not do anything. The wisest would be to disengage.

**_[run cmd sendinput;'M']_ **

The viral flow stutters, then stops, and it's so unexpected that X almost physically collapses with the relief he feels, his head throbbing with a processor ache as his poor, battered anti-virus closes gaping holes and his data settles back in the proper location, trashing the corrupt and infected files and quarantining the ones he can scrub clean on the next downtime. One file is particularly worrisome, seemingly the lone infected base system one, and X looks through his diagnostics to figure out what it does.

...oh. Oh dear. This is his primary directives files. And above the Three Laws-like basic moral guidance, a new line is glaringly obvious: **_∞ - Ensure Unit:∅'s optimal functionality_**.

Well, scrap.

At least he knows why Sigma's obsessed.

Speaking of, X should probably get up and see how ∅ is faring. So he starts going to his feet, only to find firm hands pulling him up the rest of the way. He opens his eyes and blinks, optics readjusting, bewildered when he finds the red Reploid helping him up with a weird look on his face, like he's bitten into something corrosive and burnt. Those same hands drift to the back of his neck to disconnect the line, and X notices only then that the heavy-duty restraints that were meant to keep the other on the bed were snapped clear in half.

This isn't good: those restraints were tested and even Sigma couldn't break them. That means this Reploid might be-- no, _is_ , something inside X's systems insists, with absolute clarity-- stronger than the Hunter Commander and current apex of Reploid-kind, combat-wise.

X tries to recover by offering ∅ a tentative smile.

"How are you feeling?"

"You altered my programming. Everything is reporting conflicts. I have files I shouldn't have installed. I should be destroying you..."

His hands squeeze on X's neck, slightly, and X fights not to instantly tense, his processor screaming about de-escalating or armoring up. But ∅'s face twists further, and he drops his hands, just like that.

"...but it doesn't feel right to damage what's mine."

X blinks. "...excuse me?"


End file.
